NW Iowa teen dies, others hospitalized, after smoking synthetic drugs

A Sioux City teenager died and three others were hospitalized after police say they became ill while smoking a synthetic drug.

Officer Jeremy McClure of the Sioux City Police Department says emergency responders were initially called late Thursday night to War Eagle Park to check on a person who was sick. “Four subjects were transported to local hospitals for treatment after ingesting smokeable synthetic drugs. One those subjects, 18-year-old Austin McCloud of Sioux City, died while being treated,” McClure said at a news conference today.

McCloud and the three other victims, between the ages of 16 and18, were found together in a car shortly after 11 p.m. McClure said an autopsy will help determine exactly what caused McCloud’s death. Two of the teens were still be treated at the hospital, as of this afternoon, while the other teen was treated and released.

The names of the other three victims are not being released, but McClure said they are all students at Sioux City West High School. It remains unclear exactly what substances were being used by the four teens. “We’re not exactly sure what synthetic drug they were using at this time,” McClure said. “The substances that we found at the scene are being sent to the Iowa State Criminal Lab to be tested.”